May 7, 2012

My experimenting
with Sourdough goes on! This time with a delicious soft, sweet and
fruity Focaccia. With the kind permission of the editor “Edagricole" I
have translated this recipe from Ms A. Scialdone's book “La pasta
madre”.

At the end you'll find a description of my intentional and “not-so-intentional”
changes. Ingredients (for a rectangular baking sheet of 30 x 35 cm): 400 g wheat flour "O" 110 g water 150 g sourdough
refreshed (4h after refreshal) 60 g egg 70 g sugar 25 g extra
virgin olive oil + 10 g water 10 g malt barley 5 g salt For the Filling 25 g butter,
melted 250 g
blueberries granulated sugar Place the
sourdough in a large bowl, add the lukewarm water and with a fork or
with your hands dissolve the yeast. Add the following ingredients in
the given order: barley malt, flour, egg, sugar, salt and mix well.
Then add the oil emulsified with the 10 g of water and continue
stirring.

Transfer the dough to your working surface and knead it
vigorously for 10-15 minutes, until it is smooth and homogeneous.
Form a ball (pic. 1), cover with plastic foil and let rise in a warm place for 3 hours (* and pic. 2) , then deflate the dough to obtain a rectangle and
proceed with a series of folds (****). Let it rest for
1 hour, then roll it out with your hands or with a rolling pin and
lay it on a baking sheet, which has been lined with parchment paper (pic. 3).
Cover and let rise for 3 hours (pic. 4), then brush the dough with the melted
butter (**) and make little thumbprints following a
regular pattern (pic. 5). Add the blueberries (*** and pic. 6) and sprinkle with plenty of
sugar (pic. 7). (You'll need a lot of sugar (I've used 70 gr) because otherwise all you get is a burned surface as it caramelize immediately). Bake in a
preheated static oven at 190 °C (without steam) for 20-25 minutes.
Remove from oven and let cool before serving (pic. 8). (*) the book
states 3 hours for the first rise. My dough needed almost 24h (!).
After 8 hours of an almost non existent rise I was thinking to
discard it, but then I changed my mind, put it in the oven with the
lights on and wished him “good night”. This morning I found a
fantastic dough that had risen to the rims' bowl. I was so pleased I
did not give up!(**) Ups! I must
have skipped the line with the melted butter as I did not use any.
The end result was great even without it.(***) The
original recipe calls for blueberries only. Since I had some
raspberries at hand I've added some... Yummy!(****) folding the dough: Gently flatten the dough trying to
maintain a rectangular shape. Folding two opposite sides (up and
down), bring them to the middle (like an envelope). Press gently. Do
the same with the right and left side. Turn the seam side down, cover
with a plastic foil and let rest.